About EMDR therapy
Eye Movement desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, is an extensively researched therapy modality that helps people heal from emotional distress caused by adverse life events. EMDR therapy helps your brain “reprocess” difficult memories so they’re not as emotionally intense. Unlike traditional talk therapy, this approach does not require you to describe the trauma in detail (reliving the trauma in the process) or analyze it for long periods. Instead, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, which stimulates the right and left hemispheres of your brain back and forth through guided eye movements, tapping, or sounds, to support healing. Over time, EMDR has evolved into treating not only PTSD, but also other disorders, such as anxiety, depression, phobias, and even chronic pain. With EMDR, I will guide you through eight phases to help create safety, the reprocessing of material, and integration. Here’s a quick breakdown of what EMDR sessions involve:
History Taking and Treatment Planning: The first phase is dedicated to getting to know you and to listening to your story. We’ll identify important moments in your life that we’ll later use to re-process.
Preparation: This phase is about building trust and learning skills to help your nervous system stay calm and feel safe.
Assessment: Together we identify the specific negative thoughts you’ve associated with the traumatic event (or target memory) and replace them with positive ones. I’ll ask you how upsetting the memory feels using a scale called the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUDs).
Desensitization: This is where eye movements or other bilateral stimulation come in. While you focus on the memory, I’ll guide your eye movements back and forth during which you’ll let your mind bounce around, without trying to control your thoughts. This part is the “de-sensitizing” of painful emotions, thoughts, and sensations that are stored around the event.
Installation: The goal here is to increase the new, positive belief you want to associate with the memory. This could be something like “I am safe now” or “I did the best I could.”
Body Scan: You’ll check in with your body to see if there are still any physical symptoms or tension in your body tied to the memory.
Closure: No matter how far you get in reprocessing session, we’ll end the session using calming techniques to make sure you are in a calm, grounded state before leaving therapy.
Reevaluation: At the next session, I start by asking how you’re feeling about the memory you worked on in the previous session, and if you need to do more work on it. Sometimes the intensity of a target will change between sessions.